Greetings,
I've not changed the subject line for this discussion, to enable readers
of the archive to follow the discussion via the thread.
Overall the discussion queried how information about how information
practitioners and others through their education were being encouraged to
find communities of interest.
The discussion veered into whether e-mail discussion lists were archaic
and outmoded, and should be replaced with "social networking" sites such
as Twitter and MySpace and the like.
I would like to draw a careful distinction between e-mail lists and
"social networking" sites. (Bernie is exactly right, in that the e-mail
lists (and, for that matter, the origins of e-mail itself in the appending
of a personal, social comment to an FTP'd file across the network) are all
social networking techniques and sites.
The distinction is this: e-mail lists ask you to "follow the group." A
group of folks with a common interest gather together electronically and
talk. jESSE is an example.
So-called "social networking" sites ask you to "follow the individual."
Look at ME!! See what I have to say!! I can't fault Mary Minow's
libraries and the law blog - it's great, but she's established herself in
this area through other media. And Lorcan Dempsey's (from OCLC Research)
might be interesting.
This is a fundamental distinction. And both directions have their place
in a complex information environment. The first is based on the group, the
second is based on an individual. It is patently unrealistic and
uninformed to say that one is better, or should replace the other.
--gw
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Gretchen Whitney, PhD, retired
School of Information Sciences
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA [log in to unmask]
http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/
jESSE:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/jesse.html
SIGMETRICS:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
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